An ability to provide viewer-selectable interactivity and other actions in conjunction with still-image, audio and/or video content may be a desirable capability in a broadcast system. A required capability in a system intended for this purpose may be an ability to control activity during discontinuities in program content, for example, commercial breaks, emergency broadcast interruptions, and other program-content discontinuities. Existing systems for providing viewer-selectable interactivity in conjunction with still-image audio and/or video content may be problematic in many broadcast environments because of existing systems' reliance on specific signaling content in the broadcast stream. No standardized method for conveying such signals is provided across the multiple broadcast methodologies, for example, cable, terrestrial, satellite, Internet Protocol, and other broadcast methodologies, that may be used to distribute program content. Furthermore, signals that are introduced into a broadcast stream at one point in a distribution chain may be modified or removed at a later point in the processing of the broadcast stream prior to reception by the viewer. Additionally, the insertion of commercial content into program content may vary with respect to the timing, duration and identity of the commercial content during each unique broadcast of a particular piece of program content and for each method of broadcast of the program content. Due to this variability, existing systems may require control signals be inserted specifically for each presentation of the program content.
Existing still-image/audio/video content recognition systems may receive still-image/audio/video input and perform a specified action appropriate to the identity of the still-image/audio/video content. Existing systems may fail to perform actions when still-image/audio/video content identification cannot disambiguate between two or more sources, for example when two or more still-image/audio/video reference sources share substantially identical content.
Methods and systems that monitor still-image/audio/video content and select a specified action to perform when still-image/audio/video content identification identifies two or more possible still-image/audio/video sources as substantially identical may be desirable.